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Collaborative Text Editing Without CRDTs or OT

2025-05-21

This blog post presents a novel approach to collaborative text editing that avoids the complexities of Conflict-free Replicated Data Types (CRDTs) and Operational Transformation (OT). The core idea is to assign globally unique IDs to each character and use "insert after" operations. The server updates its state literally based on these operations, while clients employ server reconciliation for optimistic local updates. This approach is simpler and more flexible than CRDT/OT, allowing for customized operations and features like handling rich text and access controls. An accompanying npm library, Articulated, aids in implementation.

(mattweidner.com)

Development collaborative editing

Meta Tightens Performance Reviews, Signaling More Layoffs

2025-05-21

Meta Tightens Performance Reviews, Signaling More Layoffs

Meta is raising the bar on performance reviews, increasing the percentage of employees categorized as 'below expectations' to 15-20% for mid-year evaluations, up from 12-15% last year. This follows the company's earlier layoff of nearly 4,000 employees and reflects a broader trend in tech toward stricter performance management. The move includes employees who have already left and allows for performance-based terminations. Meta's actions underscore its focus on streamlining operations and cost reduction, mirroring similar efforts at other tech giants like Microsoft and Google.

(www.businessinsider.com)

Tech Performance Reviews

Coinbase Data Breach Sparks Fears of Kidnappings and Deaths

2025-05-20

Coinbase Data Breach Sparks Fears of Kidnappings and Deaths

TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington claims that a recent Coinbase data breach, exposing sensitive user data like addresses and balances, will lead to deaths due to a surge in kidnapping attempts targeting high-net-worth crypto holders. Arrington calls for a re-evaluation of KYC regulations and imprisonment for executives failing to protect customer data. Former Coinbase CTO Balaji Srinivasan counters that the problem stems from government-mandated KYC data collection. The incident highlights serious security and privacy concerns in the crypto space and sparks debate over the merits of KYC.

(decrypt.co)

Tech Crypto Security

ZLinq: A Radical Optimization and Extension of LINQ

2025-05-20

ZLinq: A Radical Optimization and Extension of LINQ

ZLinq is a .NET LINQ library that dramatically improves LINQ performance through clever architecture and optimization strategies. It introduces the `IValueEnumerator` interface, replacing the traditional `MoveNext` and `Current` with `TryGetNext` to reduce method calls. Furthermore, it supports `Span` and SIMD operations, and provides LINQ support for tree structures like JSON and Unity's GameObjects. ZLinq's optimizations aim to minimize allocations and method calls, resulting in faster processing, especially beneficial when dealing with large datasets or performance-critical scenarios.

(neuecc.medium.com)

Development

arXivLabs: Experimenting with Community Collaboration

2025-05-21

arXivLabs is a platform enabling collaborators to develop and share new arXiv features directly on the website. Participants, both individuals and organizations, embrace arXiv's values of openness, community, excellence, and user data privacy. arXiv is committed to these values and only partners with those who share them. Have an idea to enhance the arXiv community? Learn more about arXivLabs.

(arxiv.org)

Development

A GeoJSON-Powered Timezone Lookup Server

2025-05-20

A GeoJSON-Powered Timezone Lookup Server

This project creates a simple PHP server that matches time zones to longitude/latitude coordinates. Leveraging GeoJSON data from the Timezone Boundary Builder project, it builds an efficient database for fast timezone lookups. The server uses 'domain rectangles' for quick filtering and a 'winding number' algorithm for precise matching. Users simply send longitude/latitude coordinates to receive the standard TZ timezone designator. The project is open-source under the MIT license.

(github.com)

Development

Chicago Sun-Times Uses AI to Generate Fake Summer Reading List, Sparking Outrage

2025-05-20

Chicago Sun-Times Uses AI to Generate Fake Summer Reading List, Sparking Outrage

The Chicago Sun-Times published a fake summer reading list generated by AI in its summer supplement, causing widespread controversy. The list featured real authors but fictional book titles, drawing criticism from writers and readers alike. While the publisher explained that the supplement was generic national content and resources were limited after staff reductions, readers expressed dissatisfaction, viewing it as deceptive to subscribers and demanding accountability. This incident highlights the risks and ethical concerns of AI in news publishing, and the struggles faced by media outlets under resource constraints.

(arstechnica.com)

Tech media ethics

My Favorite LaTeX Fonts: A Deep Dive into Seven Free Options

2025-05-20

Lino Ferreira shares his top seven favorite LaTeX fonts, providing a detailed comparison of their strengths and weaknesses. From the classic Bembo to the modern Libertine, each font is accompanied by historical context, design rationale, and LaTeX usage examples. The article also explores the pairing of serif and sans-serif fonts, and the differences between OpenType and Type 1 fonts, offering valuable guidance for LaTeX users in font selection.

(www.lfe.pt)

Development

Lil Nas X Copyright Case: Algorithmic Recommendation Not a Get-Out-of-Jail-Free Card

2025-05-20

Lil Nas X Copyright Case: Algorithmic Recommendation Not a Get-Out-of-Jail-Free Card

Freelance artist Rodney Woodland sued Lil Nas X for copyright infringement over semi-nude photos posted on Instagram. The court dismissed the case, finding Woodland's photos lacked sufficient engagement to prove Lil Nas X had access to them, and that substantial similarity between the photos was lacking. The court delved into the impact of social media algorithms on the copyright "access" standard, stating that merely posting works to social media isn't enough to prove access; it requires showing the defendant had a reasonable chance of seeing the plaintiff's work through the platform's algorithm or content-sharing policies. This case sets a significant precedent for future social media algorithmic recommendation and copyright litigation.

(blog.ericgoldman.org)

Law

Detecting Feigned ADHD Symptoms: A Review of Recent Research

2025-05-20

Detecting Feigned ADHD Symptoms: A Review of Recent Research

A surge in research focuses on identifying feigned ADHD symptoms in adults. This review synthesizes numerous studies exploring various assessment methods, including the Conners' Adult ADHD Rating Scales (CAARS) and its validity indices, the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS-IV) digit span, and other neuropsychological test batteries. Researchers employed simulation studies and clinical sample analyses to evaluate the validity of these methods, addressing factors like symptom coaching and information access that influence feigned responses. The findings contribute significantly to more accurate ADHD diagnosis and assessment in adults, reducing misdiagnosis.

(link.springer.com)

AI validity assessment feigned symptoms

Adobe Raises Creative Cloud Prices, Adds Generative AI Features

2025-05-20

Adobe Raises Creative Cloud Prices, Adds Generative AI Features

Adobe is increasing prices for its Creative Cloud All Apps plan in North America, renaming it Creative Cloud Pro. The price hike comes with the addition of generative AI features, including unlimited credits for image generation and 4,000 monthly credits for premium video and audio AI tools. Individual annual subscriptions will rise from $59.99 to $69.99 per month, while monthly subscriptions jump from $89.99 to $104.99. A cheaper Creative Cloud Standard plan with limited AI capabilities is also being offered. The changes have sparked some user backlash, raising questions about Adobe's pricing strategy.

(www.theverge.com)

Development

Kalvad Ditches Ubuntu for Alpine and FreeBSD: A Deep Dive into OS Migration

2025-05-20

Kalvad Ditches Ubuntu for Alpine and FreeBSD: A Deep Dive into OS Migration

Kalvad recently underwent a significant server operating system migration, moving from Ubuntu to Alpine Linux and FreeBSD. This post details their rationale, including an in-depth evaluation of various OSes' performance, security, and resource efficiency. They chose Alpine Linux for stateless services and FreeBSD for those requiring high throughput and reliability, highlighting the advantages of ZFS, PF firewall, and pkg package manager. While challenges like software updates and tool compatibility arose, Kalvad found the benefits of FreeBSD and Alpine far outweighed the drawbacks, resulting in significantly improved system stability, efficiency, and security.

(blog.kalvad.com)

Development OS migration

Software Engineering: An Art of Discovery, Not Just Engineering

2025-05-20

Software Engineering: An Art of Discovery, Not Just Engineering

Software engineering is not merely an engineering practice; it's more of an art, full of the joy of discovery. The article uses early computer animations as an example to illustrate how a deep understanding of underlying technologies can lead to unexpected creativity. It argues that in software development, the interplay between vision and engineering is bidirectional and nonlinear, rather than linear. The author critiques the drawbacks of over-reliance on abstraction layers and black-box thinking, arguing that this limits creativity and innovation. The same applies to software organizations: over-emphasizing team autonomy while neglecting inter-team collaboration leads to low overall efficiency. The author calls for a return to understanding underlying technologies to spark true innovation.

(moxie.org)

Development

The Amazing Journey of a File: From Bits to Bytes and Back Again

2025-05-20

This article takes you on a captivating journey into the heart of your computer's file system. By tracking a simple text file, the author uses Linux tools to pinpoint its physical location on the hard drive, deciphering the inode structure and transforming abstract bits into meaningful file information. This engaging exploration proves the seemingly simple concept that disks and memory are merely 'bunches of bits', demystifying the process with hands-on experimentation.

(www.cyberdemon.org)

Development file system

Google Search's AI Mode Gets a Massive Upgrade: Gemini 2.5, Shopping, and More

2025-05-20

Google Search's AI Mode Gets a Massive Upgrade: Gemini 2.5, Shopping, and More

Google has fully rolled out its AI Mode to all Search users in the US, powered by Gemini 2.5. This enhanced mode includes new features like shopping capabilities, ticket price comparison, and custom chart generation. Designed to handle complex queries beyond traditional search, AI Mode allows users to compare fitness trackers, for example. Future plans include integrating many of AI Mode's features into the core search experience and adding 'Deep Search' for comprehensive reports. AI Mode will also gain the ability to complete web tasks like booking tickets and reservations, and personalized recommendations via Gmail integration.

(www.engadget.com)

AI

GPU-Driven Forward Rendering: 27,000 Stanford Dragons, 10,000 Lights, 60+ FPS!

2025-05-20

GPU-Driven Forward Rendering: 27,000 Stanford Dragons, 10,000 Lights, 60+ FPS!

This article details a GPU-driven forward renderer using clustered shading, achieving over 60 FPS rendering of 27,000 Stanford dragons with 10,000 lights on a GTX 1070. High performance is achieved by storing entity data in contiguous GPU buffers and using indirect multi-draw calls to minimize draw calls. The author meticulously explains techniques like culling, buffer management, and clustered shading, showcasing optimization strategies such as atomic counters and ballots for efficient buffer compaction. The article provides performance data and code examples, offering valuable insights into high-performance rendering.

(logdahl.net)

Development clustered shading

RepoRoulette: Randomly Sample GitHub Repositories

2025-05-20

RepoRoulette: Randomly Sample GitHub Repositories

RepoRoulette is a powerful tool for randomly sampling GitHub repositories, offering three distinct methods: ID sampling, temporal sampling, and BigQuery sampling. ID sampling directly selects random IDs from GitHub's ID space, offering speed but with low hit rates. Temporal sampling chooses repositories updated within a specified time range, allowing filtering by stars, languages, etc. BigQuery sampling leverages Google BigQuery's public GitHub dataset, providing powerful capabilities but requiring a GCP account and billing. RepoRoulette is suitable for academic research, learning resources, data science, trend analysis, and security research.

(github.com)

Development Data Sampling

Astra: Blazing-Fast JS-to-Exe Compiler

2025-05-20

Astra: Blazing-Fast JS-to-Exe Compiler

Astra is a fast, reliable, and easy-to-use JavaScript to executable (.exe) compiler available on npm. Boasting an aesthetically pleasing CLI built with signale, inquirer, and chalk, Astra offers a superior user experience. Powered by esbuild, it boasts incredibly fast compilation speeds. It supports compiling ESM-based applications (with workarounds for Node.js SEA limitations) and generates a single executable file containing all dependencies. Customize metadata (icon, name, version, etc.) and benefit from built-in compression for smaller executables. Install globally via npm, yarn, or pnpm, or locally for individual projects.

(github.com)

Development

Protectionism Won't Reverse US Deindustrialization

2025-05-20

Protectionism Won't Reverse US Deindustrialization

President Trump's protectionist trade policies have failed to halt the long-term decline of US manufacturing. The article argues that manufacturing's shrinking share of developed economies since the 1940s is a universal trend of "tertiarization," where services dominate. Attempts to reverse this through trade restrictions are ineffective. More effective strategies are public investment, including support for SMEs, education, and infrastructure, rather than tax cuts or wage suppression.

(blog.waldrn.com)

Tech deindustrialization

US Sanctions on ICC Expose Risks of Reliance on American IT Services

2025-05-19

US Sanctions on ICC Expose Risks of Reliance on American IT Services

US sanctions against the International Criminal Court (ICC) have resulted in Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan's Microsoft account being blocked and his bank accounts frozen. This incident highlights the risks of over-reliance on US IT services. While Microsoft claims it will protect European user data, changes in US government policy could alter this at any time. European governments need to reassess their dependence on Microsoft services and explore more secure, sovereign alternatives, ensuring national security doesn't hinge on the promises within Service Level Agreements (SLAs).

(www.techzine.eu)

Tech IT security

Microsoft Unveils Lightweight Command-Line Editor 'Edit'

2025-05-19

Microsoft Unveils Lightweight Command-Line Editor 'Edit'

Microsoft launched its new command-line text editor, Edit, at its Build conference. This open-source, sub-250KB editor aims to provide a lightweight default CLI text editor for 64-bit Windows, addressing the lack of a built-in option and aiming to avoid the infamous "how do I exit vim?" problem. Edit boasts keybindings, find and replace functionality, regular expression support, and more. It will be available through the Windows Insider program in the coming months. Microsoft also rebranded Windows Dev Home to Advanced Windows Settings, integrating additional developer-focused toggles into the main Windows 11 settings.

(www.theverge.com)

Development

Top 500 Most Viewed Wikipedia Pages

2025-05-19

This dataset reveals the top 500 most viewed Wikipedia pages, spanning various categories including countries, languages, figures, and geographical locations. Countries like Turkey, Japan, and the United States rank highly, while notable figures such as Michael Jackson and Donald Trump also hold prominent positions. The list offers insight into global information consumption patterns and reflects the influence of different cultures and events.

(sohom.dev)

Misc Page Views

Typographic Rivers: A Curious Case of Accidental Alignment

2025-05-19

Typographic Rivers: A Curious Case of Accidental Alignment

Have you ever noticed how sometimes the spaces between words in printed text coincidentally align to form vertical 'rivers' of whitespace? This phenomenon, most common in monospaced fonts with full justification, is generally avoided by typographers due to its distracting nature. The article cites a classic 12-line example discovered in 1988 and a collection from 1986, highlighting the intriguing randomness of this typographic quirk.

(www.futilitycloset.com)

Design

Ann: A Decentralized Annotation Server for Empowering Applications

2025-05-20

Ann is a minimal ActivityPub-based decentralized social media built around Web Annotations, essentially comments, recommendations, or likes on any content. It's not a standalone webpage, but a server designed for integration with other applications. Imagine comment sections in Gemini browsers, private research paper annotation systems, article recommendation feeds, browser plugins for adding and viewing comments across the web, or even AI training datasets. Ann's vision is a web independent of JavaScript and trackers, empowering applications with annotation capabilities, giving users choice, privacy, and control over their content consumption.

(mccd.space)

Development web annotation

Biff: A Customizable Full-Stack Clojure Web Framework

2025-05-20

Biff: A Customizable Full-Stack Clojure Web Framework

Biff is a novel Clojure full-stack web framework that curates libraries and tools from across the ecosystem into one polished whole. It features immutable database support, schema enforcement with Malli, and uses hyperscript for rich, interactive UIs without leaving the backend. Passwordless email-based authentication (magic links and one-time passcodes) is included. Deploy via Ubuntu VPS provisioning or a Dockerized Uberjar. Changes are evaluated on file save, and a production REPL allows for live development. Biff boasts strong defaults but is designed to be easily modified as your needs evolve.

(biffweb.com)

Development Full-Stack

Questioning Representational Optimism: The Fractured Entangled Representation Hypothesis

2025-05-20

Questioning Representational Optimism: The Fractured Entangled Representation Hypothesis

This research challenges the optimistic assumption in deep learning that larger scale necessarily implies better performance and better internal representations. By comparing networks evolved through an open-ended search process to those trained via conventional SGD on a simple image generation task, researchers found that SGD-trained networks exhibit 'fractured entangled representations' (FER), characterized by disorganized neuron activity hindering generalization, creativity, and continual learning. Evolved networks, in contrast, show a more unified and factored representation, suggesting that addressing FER could be crucial for advancing representation learning and building more robust AI systems.

(github.com)

AI

Building a Blog Search Engine from Scratch with Word2Vec

2025-05-20

The authors built a blog search engine from scratch using Python and Word2Vec embeddings. Posts and search queries are embedded into a 300-dimensional vector space, and cosine similarity is used to rank results. To make it web-friendly, the Word2Vec model is split into an index and vectors, with HTTP Range requests used to download only necessary data, reducing web load significantly. An evaluation metric is designed to assess the search engine's accuracy, and future improvements, such as using TF-IDF to reduce noise, are discussed.

(bernsteinbear.com)

Development

Litestream: Major Update Brings Fast Point-in-Time Restores and Lightweight Read Replicas

2025-05-20

Litestream: Major Update Brings Fast Point-in-Time Restores and Lightweight Read Replicas

Litestream, an open-source tool enabling full-stack applications to run reliably on top of SQLite by recovering from object storage, has received a major update. The improvements leverage technology from LiteFS to provide significantly faster point-in-time restores (PITR), simplify replication management using object storage's compare-and-swap capabilities, and introduce lightweight read replicas based on a virtual filesystem (VFS). These changes enhance Litestream's reliability and ease of use, particularly when dealing with numerous databases. The update also positions Litestream to better support LLM code development by providing PITR as a primitive for rollbacks and branching.

(fly.io)

Development

Google Unveils Breakthrough Generative Media Models

2025-05-20

Google Unveils Breakthrough Generative Media Models

Google today announced its newest generative media models, marking significant advancements in image, video, and music creation. Veo 3 and Imagen 4 produce breathtaking visuals, while Lyria 2 expands musical capabilities. Additionally, Flow, a new AI filmmaking tool, empowers creators with sophisticated control over characters, scenes, and styles, enabling cinematic storytelling. Developed with close collaboration from creative industries, these models and tools responsibly empower artists and creators to explore the potential of AI in their work.

(blog.google)

AI Media Creation

llm-d: A Kubernetes-Native Distributed LLM Inference Framework

2025-05-20

llm-d is a Kubernetes-native, high-performance distributed Large Language Model (LLM) inference framework offering a streamlined path to serving LLMs at scale. It boasts the fastest time-to-value and competitive performance per dollar for most models across most hardware accelerators. Utilizing cutting-edge distributed inference optimizations like KV-cache aware routing and disaggregated serving, co-designed and integrated with Kubernetes operational tooling in Inference Gateway (IGW), llm-d enables users to operationalize generative AI deployments with a modular, high-performance, end-to-end serving solution. Unlike traditional scaling approaches, llm-d is optimized for the unique characteristics of LLM inference, such as slow, non-uniform, expensive requests, achieving superior performance. Through cache-aware routing, task disaggregation, and adaptive scaling, llm-d significantly improves throughput and efficiency, reduces latency, and supports diverse Quality of Service requirements.

(llm-d.ai)

Development LLM Inference

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